The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for continuously excavating a shaft and a tunnel.
As shown in FIG. 1, in conventional excavation of a tunnel, a shaft a is excavated by a drive or caisson method and then a shield excavator b is conveyed into a bottom of the shaft a so as to excavate a tunnel c.
In this conventional system, it is very troublesome to convey the excavator b into the shaft a. A further problem is that separate machines for respectively excavating the shaft a and the tunnel c must be provided, which will disadvantageously increase excavating costs.
In view of these, a primary object of the present invention is to provide a method and an apparatus for continuously excavating a shaft and a tunnel by a single machine.